Side effects? What side effects?

In retrospect, I should have taken it a little easier after getting my second Moderna vaccine yesterday afternoon. I taught my morning classes, drove to Jackson, got the jab, and then taught my afternoon class over Zoom, and the whole time I felt fine. A little headache last night, a little arm soreness this morning, but nothing that would lead me to believe that a two-and-a-half-mile hike in the woods would not be a good idea. 

It was a pretty good idea at first. We walked a little more slowly than usual, but that's no problem when there's so much beautiful stuff blooming all around. I had thought that if we felt worn out, we could cut our usual hike short and take the shortcut from the wetland up to the parking lot, but when we got there, we felt okay. And besides, I really wanted to see whether those white trout lilies were blooming this week, but the only way to see them is to take the long loop through the wetland and up the bluebell trail alongside the creek.

So that's what we did. Hiked the wetland, heard Louisiana waterthrushes in two different places, saw trilliums and bluebells and festoons of dutchman's breeches and foamflowers and violets and I don't know what else, and we found not one but four white trout lilies blooming, very small and nondescript next to the trail, easy to overlook if you don't keep your eyes peeled. 

But by that time I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Is it possible to nap while hiking? My arm hurt and started swelling. My legs felt like wet spaghetti. We sat on a log to take a break and when I closed my eyes for a few minutes, I came very close to falling asleep right in the middle of the woods. And when we got back to the top, I did not feel alert enough to drive us home.

Good thing I had the hubby with me. He had his second vaccine jab on Thursday and tried not to let it slow him down, but he wasn't moving at his usual pace this morning, and pretty soon we'll be napping the afternoon away.  I'll remember this lesson next time we have to get vaccinated against a nasty global pandemic--but let's hope there's no next time! I've had about as much as I can take of this one.